A Reading in Honor of Pablo Neruda's Centennial

Chilean Nobel Laureate Most Known for His Love Poems

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Listen: Dorfman Reads 'Sexual Water' in English

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Listen: Dorfman Reads 'Sexual Water' in Spanish

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Listen: Isabelle Allende Reads 'The Dead Woman,' from Neruda's The Captain's Verses

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Pablo Neruda, circa 1946.

All Things Considered, July 12, 2004 · The Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda would have turned 100 years old today. Fellow Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez called him the "greatest poet of the 20th century -- in any language."

Born the son of a railway worker, Neruda began writing poetry when he was 14. He spent his 20s in Spain, during the country's civil war, and went on to win a Nobel Prize in 1971, two years before he died.

Neruda is most famous for his love poems. To mark Neruda's centennial, Chilean-American poet Ariel Dorfman reads Neruda's poem "Sexual Water," from his collection Residence on Earth, in English and Spanish.

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